The Internet has emerged as a critical communication infrastructure, carrying traffic for a wide range of important applications. Internet services such as VoIP and SoIP are becoming ubiquitous and more and more businesses and consumers are utilizing these networks to obtain services from any location with an Internet connection. For example, customers may combine their data and voice services on an Internet based infrastructure such as VoIP and reduce the cost associated with multiple communications infrastructures. When customers subscribe to a voicemail service on a VoIP or SoIP platform, the network service provider creates and sends email messages containing audio files to the customer. If a customer receives multiple voicemail messages, the customer listens to each audio clip one by one. For example, a customer clicks on an email containing an audio file, then clicks and listens to the audio file until it is finished, then clicks on another email, and so on. However, the customers are used to being able to multitask while listening to voicemail messages stored on answering machines, i.e., the customer may wish to perform other tasks while listening to voicemail messages.
Therefore there is a need for a method and apparatus that enables a customer to retrieve and listen to voicemail messages at the same time.